Recently, there is much interest in Bluetooth (BT) technology as one of the short range wireless communication standard for fulfilling low cost and low energy bidirectional short range communication. Bluetooth communication technology is a short range wireless connection technology capable of bidirectional data communication through pairing of the electronic device within a short range. The Bluetooth communication technology is ratified as one of the short range wireless communication standard, various techniques are being developed and widespread in various fields due to the low energy characteristic.
Recent interests in Bluetooth communication technology are focused on fast transmission of small amount of data and low energy communication technique allowing for communication with low power consumption, breaking from the conventional large-amount data transmission issue. Such a low energy Bluetooth communication technology is applied in various fields such as health care and medical service as well as communication between devices such as monitoring sensor, mobile computer, mobile phone, headset, PDA, tablet PC, and printer.
In the case of the mobile terminal, the communication module responsible for Bluetooth communication is controlled by a process such as Application Processor (AP). The AP of the mobile terminal is also responsible for controlling function blocks and calculation for processing data.
Meanwhile, the mobile terminal in idle state enters sleep mode to reduce power energy consumption. In the sleep mode, the AP cuts off the power supply to various function blocks and the communication interface. Accordingly, the mobile terminal in the sleep mode cannot use the function blocks connected to the AP.
Particularly when monitoring and collecting data using Bluetooth communication, although the Bluetooth communication data are received successfully, the mobile terminal in the sleep mode cannot process the data immediately. For example, although it receives the data from a health care appliance (e.g., heart beat rate meter and blood pressure meter) requiring continuous measurement at a short period, the conventional mobile terminal can experience data processing delay in the state where the processor utilization amount exceeds a predetermined level.
Also, the AP has to stay in active mode requiring the state where the mobile terminal is powered on in order to perform the function of receiving data periodically from outside such as GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi functions. In this case, the periodic signal scanning causes significant power consumption so as to reduce the battery span.
There is, therefore, a need of a method for monitoring the data from the Bluetooth devices and sensor module and operating the Bluetooth communication function regardless of the operation at low power level regardless of the operation state of the AP.